Honglou Meng

This was a good comment to read over breakfast!

Firstly, yes we do seem to have very similar tastes. Old Fashion Cupcake is my favourite "light" BL ever, and one of a handful I have rewatched more than twice. It is simply a perfect series. I also think Ang Lee can mostly do no wrong -- the one exception being Life of Pi. But for that, I blame Yann Martel, than Ang Lee himself. The fact that he managed to turn Eileen Chang's story into one of the most erotic films (Lust, Caution) still boggles me.

Secondly, I looked this up. It seems E Annie Proulx hated the film less because of the gay content, and certainly not because of the sex scenes, but because of the audience. Her aim was to write about homophobia (in other words hatred that comes from sex). The audience wanted to make it about romance, and speculate about alternative endings and universes. In some ways, I can see why, because if you have lost your loved one due to violence, speculative romance threatens to erase the homophobia.

Thirdly, I'm completely with you on sexless BLs. The women who originated Yaoi didn't want it -- if anything, the early BLs were hypersexual, with "dubcon", "noncon" and the whole lexicon that the young'uns have, with justification, elaborated around it. Why, and at what point, the present prurience took over, I'm not sure. Is Japan going through a Will & Grace moment? Has the present generation, reared on social media, where binarism reigns, been trained to view any sex as dangerous, unless solidified with something like a verbal contract? Is it the same trend that goes with "no kink at pride", and "sex does not further the plot"?

Now, I'm in my 30s, and yet, I know of the porn movements of the 60s and 70s. Score was screened in cinemas, and Pinku Eiga were popular in Japan. So, the present trend worries and upsets me, because, as I said elsewhere, it is not because I fall accidentally on someone and touch their lips with my eyes wide open, that I had to flee homophobia. It is because of whom I f*ck. I can't help but feel that the present trend of sexless BLs -- and the commentary which both defends it to death, and comes virulently after anyone who criticises it -- is a new form of suppressing the voices and sexualities of LGBT people.

P.S. Night Flight was so difficult to watch, I had to pause at times to catch breath. But I have seen No Regrets, which is wonderfully unhinged. Both are proof of the trend towards sexlessness we are speaking of.

So true about the violent scenes. It was quite a bit obvious that they weren't real, and broke the illusion at times.

But that's a small objection to an otherwise extraordinary JBL. It goes to places where few have gone before. Hell, it's a lot bolder than Dangerous Drugs of Sex, and that was something!

Maggi and I had a conversation on the topic of BL vs LGBT below. You might find it interesting!

Could it be that people here are strangers to the notion of empathy, the idea of putting yourself in another's shoes? Is that why they think two people cannot have the same thought, even when their expressions are different? I wonder.

I haven't called you any of those things. But then, you're under the illusion that we are all the same people.

Given all the stuff etoks has long been called here, I'm not surprised he lashes out.

Do you often feel that you shouldn't engage with these people, but it is oddly amusing to do so?

Haha, the funny thing is, I don't even care about dishonest identity or the plausibility of knowing that America has less than salubrious parts -- well most of it is insalubrious. I just really dislike using your identity alone as argument for knowledge or justification.

None of us would deny that minorities -- sexual, racial, gender, or nationalities -- would have it really hard, nor that people in the West can exoticise or be racist towards people in East Asia. But we are not culturally incurious. That's why we are here. To insinuate that any dissent, or difference of opinion, must be attributed to ignorance on our part is just stupid, and I resent it.

The worst part? I speak Japanese, and am of South Asian origin, and am gay. It is funny that my voice perturbs them so much.

I'm a minority -- not one, but three in fact -- என்னாலும் மற்ற மொழிகள் பேச முடியும், and あなたもGoogle翻訳を使えることは知っています.

I don't think you're dumb, and I don't think it's because you're a minority. It does seem as if you are awfully sensitive to criticism, and, rather than engage thoughtfully with what I say, you have been resorting to name calling and ad hominem attacks. Don't dish it if you can't take it.

Well if you can flaunt your stupidity in a forum so brazenly, I see nothing wrong with our flaunting our intelligence, eh?

Ah, Maggi, to expect that the people in this thread have any skills in close reading... You must be a very kind and tolerant person indeed!

Also, don't you love how certain buzzwords keep coming up again and again in certain comments that reveal their age without revealing it: such as Dunning Kruger effect (first described in 1999, interestingly), Godwin's Law (high prevalence here, I should say), trauma-bonding (often used so casually as to insult people with actual PTSD), among others. Then there are the less coherent ones, which are a dime a dozen.

Indeed. I'm still struggling to finish the first episode: I keep coming back to it for 15 minute sprints, watch it at 1.5 x, and find myself exhausted each time. It's... just... so.... long! If the script were fantastic, I might be patient, but...

Who here spit their coffee when Jack (Yin) claimed to be underage?

Right? I just put up a review of it (Takara, I mean), and I gave it 4 stars. Of which 3 were exclusively for Iwase Yoji.

"Nothing happens. Twice." Vivien Mercier famously said this of Waiting for Godot, but as a compliment. Of Takara no Vidro, I can say this: "Nothing happens. Ten times." And that is not a compliment. Godot, in the most common interpretation of the play, is supposed to be death. Here, we wait for any semblance of life.

There is one, and only one, reason to watch this show. Iwase Yoji. If you do watch it for him, I suggest doing so at 2x speed, though even then, the show will seem slower than a tortoise. But if you care at all about plot, acting, script, direction, chemistry, or some insight into human life -- rather than, as the title hints appropriately, a vitrified vision of it -- I suggest you give it a miss.

And, if you had ever wondered why Rihanna sang "Eh, Eh, Eh, Eh, Eh" in "Umb(u)rella", you might find a plausible answer in the character of Taishin. It seems to be about the only syllable he can muster.

Awww... Isn't it nice of you to presume that my first language is English? Or that people who have English as their second or third language can't be fluent in it? Or, even better, rather than give the benefit of the doubt that I do, that the person who was fluent enough to write horrid things in the first place about me can certainly handle barbs about them, you must instead plead inadequate language skills as soon as they are called out?

The hypocrisies here are astounding.

Thank you so much for proving my point! That last sentence... QED.

I would like to add, in response to some discussions below, that I would very much like for MDL to do away with all rating systems entirely, and for people to read the comments and reviews -- not to mention watch the shows themselves -- to make up their minds. Rating on a scale of 1 to 10 is too primitive a way to engage with any show, film, or book.

Not at all. Both my original comment, and my reply to Crimson Moon were about the rating systems, and why I think it skews that way. (Might you have confused our comments?) I should say that what makes me cross is that people here, and elsewhere, encourage each other tactically to rate certain shows higher and certain considerably lower, often in the name of 'toxicity'. (If you don't believe me, check the comments here for darker BLs, on Reddit, and elsewhere.) So in a way, the problem is the opposite of what you state to be the case: that people who prefer soft BLs really come out against hard BLs and vote them down. (Double Mints is a brilliant film and stands at 6.8!) The reverse can't be true to the same extent, because soft BLs almost uniformly have higher ratings.

In any event, people ought to be free to enjoy what they want. Who am I to say otherwise? That does not detract from what I feel are valid criticisms of the hive mentality of the viewership here and elsewhere.

Not at all. See my comment below.

Hello, fellow Londoner. Indeed. People can like what they like, of course, and want what they want. What I object to is the whole rating system here, how it is set up, and how heavily it encourages bias towards a particular form of BL.

Anything that reminds people of the reality of gay lives, people here turn away from and rate lower. Anything that reminds people that people are fucked up, the audience here rates lower. Whereas all shows where homophobia, poverty, and dysfunctional relationships do not exist -- such escapist fantasies have their place, of course -- get rated very high. This in turn influences how future BLs are funded and produced, and so, stories that deviate from this plastic norm don't get any funding. This is what upsets me.

Thankfully, the Japanese don't seem to care much about international audience, and produce shows for themselves. So they seem more immune to it.

You touch upon this in your original comment, but do you think part of the distinction has something to do with who wrote it, produced it, and directed it?

As we know, "BL" (qua BL) is written almost exclusively by straight women for straight women. (Disclaimer: As a gay man, I have no problem with this whatsoever. It is the work itself that matters.) So, the decisions to include or exclude certain tropes might be influenced heavily by authorship and the target audience in mind.

On the other hand, it seems an awful lot of what we might think of LGBT films, whether Asian or otherwise, were written or produced or directed by LGBT people. Night Flight was made by a gay man, if I'm not mistaken, and though Call Me By Your Name, the novel, was written by a straight man, the scriptwriter and the director for the film are both gay. (Same holds true for lesbian movies, like Carol, which was done by Todd Haynes.) Brokeback Mountain seems an exception, but Ang Lee is always an exception. He made Wedding Banquet -- one of the best gay comedies for my money -- in 1993, then went on to do Sense and Sensibility! Mind you, E Annie Proulx hated the film... So perhaps my point still stands.

I also wonder if, at least in the East, gender puts certain forms of constraints on what you can do on screen. It fascinates me that some of my favourite shows/films, such as Dangerous Drugs of Sex, and this one, were based on mangas by women, but directed by men. I genuinely don't know whether to call them BL or LGBT -- especially in this instance. Neither term, for me, fits, though I'd be more inclined to calling it BL than not -- simply because romance seems to be the focus, and not the struggle, which mainly provides a psychological canvas in which to paint the characters.

All of which is to say, whenever a gay person becomes involved somewhere meaningful, the film tends to acquire the heavier veneer, if not the characteristics, of the label "LGBT". If not, it moves closer to BL.